


A Smuggler's Song

by Just_A_Simple_Writer



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Based on a Poem, Childhood Friends, First Kiss, M/M, Smuggler AU, Smuggling, bcos im trash i guess, lots of mentioned horses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:35:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27628957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Just_A_Simple_Writer/pseuds/Just_A_Simple_Writer
Summary: Them that ask no questions isn’t told a lieWatch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go byGerard Keay is a smuggler’s boy.
Relationships: Gerard Keay/Michael Shelley
Comments: 13
Kudos: 36





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> title and poetry snippets from Rudyard Kipling's A Smuggler's Song

_If you wake at midnight and hear a horse’s feet_

_Don’t go drawing back the blind nor looking in the street_

_Them that ask no questions isn’t told a lie_

_Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by_

Gerard Keay is a smuggler’s boy.

Everyone in town knows it, though it’s never said aloud. One day he wasn’t here and the next he was, and those awake that night heard the clatter of horses’ hooves against the cobbles.

Michael had been awake. He had heard the horses’ hooves, the whispered voices, and he had stared at the wall as he’d been taught.

He hadn’t asked questions when he’d descended the steps next morning and found a strange boy sitting at the table.

Just like that, Gerard had become part of his life.

No one else had asked questions, either. Mrs. Robinson had a habit of taking in strays, after all.

They had grown up together, he and Michael, and in some odd way they seemed to fit together. The orphan and the smuggler’s boy.

It’s been ten years since that night, and to everyone else he might be the smuggler’s boy, but to Michael he’s just Gerry.

And Michael is so hopelessly in love with him.

They sleep in the same room. They don’t have a choice, really, with how small Mrs. Robinson’s cottage is, but it means Michael always wakes when the smugglers come.

He stares at the wall like he should and listens as Gerry slips down the stairs and out into the night, and he stays there until the sound of horse’s hooves is out of earshot.

“Are you awake?” Gerry asks, when he returns.

“Yes,” Michael whispers, as he always does, and rolls over to see Gerry in the doorway, eyes shining in the light of his candle.

Gerry smiles and blows the little flame out, padding over in the darkness to Michael’s bed and slips in without asking, pressing his cold feet to Michael’s legs.

“They’re going to take me away with them,” he says, and Michael’s heart twists.

_What about me?_ He wants to ask, and doesn’t.

“When?”

“Soon.”

Michael’s so afraid he’ll leave without saying goodbye.

“Are you excited?”

Gerry laughs, hair falling into his eyes, and Michael reaches out to tuck it behind his hear. “Of course I am. I don’t want to live here forever.”

They’re so close, and Michael could kiss him. “It’s not so bad here.”

“Maybe for you.”

Michael doesn’t kiss him. Just closes his eyes and tries to sleep, feeling Gerry pressed against him in the too-small bed.

Gerry will always be a smuggler’s boy first, Michael’s friend second.

Michael just tries not to resent him for that.

It’s rather fitting that when Michael finally does kiss him it’s already too late.

The smugglers come just a few days after Gerry’s eighteenth birthday, and Michael watches the wall as he always does.

They haven’t left by the time Gerry comes back up the stairs, and somehow Michael knows what that means.

“Are you awake?”

For a moment Michael doesn’t want to reply. Maybe Gerry won’t leave if he can’t say goodbye.

Or maybe he’ll leave without saying it at all. “Yes.”

He rolls over, sits it.

Gerry doesn’t slip into bed with him this time. “I’m leaving.”

Michael swallows. “I know.”

“I wanted to say goodbye.”

“Thank you.”

He doesn’t know what else to say, but he can’t let it end like this. He slips out of bed and wraps his arms around Gerry’s waist, holding him close.

“I’ll miss you.”

Gerry grins up at him. “You’ll have forgotten about me in a day.”

“No. Never.”

And then they’re kissing. Michael doesn’t remember moving, but their lips are pressed together and he has a hand tangled in Gerry’s hair.

He’s breathless when he pulls away. Stunned by the fact that Gerry kissed him back.

“Don’t forget me,” he pleads, when Gerry steps back.

“You?” Gerry says, lifting his hand to kiss his fingers. “Never.”

Then he’s gone, and Michael can do nothing but listen to the clatter of horses’ hooves as they retreat, carrying Gerry out of his life as quickly as he had appeared.

Gerard Keay was a smuggler’s boy, and now he’s a smuggler.

_Four and twenty ponies_

_Trotting through the dark_

_Brandy for the Parson_

_‘Baccy for the Clerk_

_Laces for a lady; letters for a spy_

_Watch the wall my darling as the Gentlemen go by_


	2. Chapter 2

A year passes, then two. The house is cold and quiet without Gerry in it.

Everyone in town knows where he’s gone, but no one even says his name anymore. Sometimes its as though he was never here at all.

Michael's good, or tries to be. He doesn’t talk about Gerry, doesn’t ask if anyone’s seen him.

He doesn’t move on, though. He still wakes every time the smugglers come, and as he stares at the wall he imagines Gerry looking up at his window. Remembering him.

But he never looks.

At least, not until there’s a tapping on the glass.

He thinks he imagined it, the first time. The second time he passes it off as a stray drop of rain.

But the third time he has to acknowledge it.

Someone’s throwing stones at his window.

He can hear the nickering of horses outside, the clatter of their hooves. He knows it’s no accident.

There’s only one person it could be.

His hands shake as he pads across the room and touches the curtain. All his life he’s been told never to look while the smugglers are here.

If Gerry’s waiting for him, though…

He draws back the curtain, pushes the window wide.

There’s very little moonlight outside. Barely enough to illuminate the figure stood before the house, but Michael would have to be blind not to recognise him.

“Are you awake?” Gerry calls, a hint of mischief in his voice. Michael would recognise that voice anywhere.

“Yes,” he says, perhaps a little too loud.

“Come down,” Gerry calls, and Michael imagines his eyes are shining in the way they used to when he had thought up some new game. “Come away with me.”

“Yes.” Michael's smiling so wide it hurts. “Yes, yes, of course.”

Gerry laughs as he closes the window and draws the curtain, and the sound rings in his eyes as Michael gathers together the few things he has. It isn’t much, but he doubts he’ll want for anything.

Gerry’s waiting for him when he steps outside, and he’s a little taller, a little broader. His hair’s grown, too, and Michael tangles his hands in it as Gerry pulls him closer.

They kiss and they kiss, and then Gerry pulls away. “I remembered you.”

“I remembered you too,” Michael murmurs. He can’t move away, can’t even look away, as though Gerry might vanish if he does.

“We need to go.”

Michael nods, feeling almost giddy. _They_ need to go. They, together.

Gerry helps him up onto a horse and climbs up behind him, wrapping an arm around his waist and taking the reins with the other. It feels so natural, and Michael relaxes against him.

He urges the horse into motion, towards the little band of smugglers, and after so many years Michael isn’t afraid to look, to listen.

He doesn’t ask _why now, why not before_. It barely matters, in the end. What matters is here and now, the wind whipping through his hair and Gerry’s warm, solid presence pressed against his back.

Gerard Keay is a smuggler, and Michael Shelley is a smuggler’s husband.

_Four and twenty horses_

_Trotting through the dark_

_Brandy for the Parson_

_‘Baccy for the Clerk_

_Them that asks no questions isn’t told a lie_

_Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have a [tumblr](https://jaysworlds.tumblr.com/)


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